April, 2015

1) It’s best to shoot to kill with all suspects. Do not call for back up to help take them down. Do not rely on pepper spray or non lethal ammunition. Do not tackle them–you might slightly injure yourself. Do not shoot them just because they’re black. Shoot them because they’re afraid or trying to get away–and black.

2) Shoot to kill, every time. Do not shoot at their legs or hips, since that might stop them without killing them.

3) If they’re white you need not shoot them unless they’re acting crazy (or “crazy”). If they’re white (or any other color) but seem to be suffering hallucinations, whether from a bipolar condition or drugs, kill them immediately. Do it quicker if they have an ink pen or a small broken bottle or some other deadly implement.

4) If they have what is likely a toy gun, shoot them. You can’t take a chance. A ten year old boy can be as deadly as a thirty year old man. Shoot them and then check.

5) If you have back-up, wait till the back-up has its guns drawn as well, so that everyone can shoot the suspect together.

6) If the suspect comes at you with a knife, no matter how small, shoot him dead instantly. Sure, if it’s in his right hand, your shot at his right shoulder is as good a shot as hitting his heart, or head, but don’t shoot him in the shoulder, because that would stop him, and he might live.

7) If they or their relatives or friends have a dog of any kind, SHOOT THE DOG. Even a toy poodle can bite.

8 ) Always opt for panic. Using judgment about when to shoot to kill will only delay shooting to kill.

HOW TO SEARCH A SUSPECT

1) If they reach into pockets for identification you have just asked for, shoot them. Maybe there was a little knife under the identification.

2) If they seem frightened by the search, shoot them. Don’t take a chance!

Your Occasional CURMUDGEON REPORT — look for them at intervals of grouchiness. “Today’s Report: WHO ARE THE GRISsers?”

As an increasingly grizzled old geezer, I’ve got a RIGHT. You got to get some privileges for being a grizzled geezer. The right to be a curmudgeon. Oh I’m just a curmudgeon in training. I still have some of those other thoughts– “but I’m starting to sound like the old goats I resented when I was young” and “every generation thinks every earlier generation is vile”. But I’ve got a RIGHT dagnabbit! I mean, dammit.

Today’s Curmudgeon Report’s theme: The GRIS: *Generation Rude, Ignorant and Spoiled*. GRISsers! Grissers are rude because they’re *certain* it’s completely acceptable to gawp and tap at their smartphones while someone is trying to converse with them. They expect a ride to work from their dad who gets up an hour early to take them through rush hour to their new job and instead of conversing, or even responding to questions without prodding, they fumble hypnotically at their phone. Because having to go to work “is such a Huge Sacrifice–so just leave me alone!”

They’re unaware that it’s rude. They’re integrally rude, inherently rude, because “that’s just our generation, it’s what we do, get over it”. They’re ignorant of the basic necessity of social bonding and kindness implied in ordinary interaction. (They’re also generally ignorant–some more than others–because most of them have decided that reading books is unnecessary because you can get “information” from the internet and your phones and be Even More Aware of the world.) They’re spoiled because they expect to move in with parents and re-nest more than any other generation I ever heard of did; they’re spoiled because they don’t think they have to vote, or work at getting more than superficial data on politics or ethics.

They’re spoiled because they assume that they somehow deserve being in the First World as opposed to the third world; because most of them would never ever consider doing volunteer work in their spare time; because they think they’re supposed to be able to steal other people’s intellectual property, their books and songs, from online sources, and that’s how it’s supposed to be and screw your intellectual property rights… They’re spoiled because they think that because they themselves got bored and went home, then Occupy’s ideas were “suppressed by Government Agents.” And they think that is the case purely because they read it in a meme somewhere or heard it in a youtube video…They’re spoiled because they think that they’re supposed to be able to copy and paste to “write” a term paper, and they’re supposed to be able to use laptops in class, so they can be distracted by fifty other things instead of notating the lecture…They’re GRIS.

There’s no use your saying, Shirley Curmudgeon, I know young people who aren’t like that, or “I’m a young person and I’m not like that”–those aren’t the people I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the non-rude non-ignorant non-spoiled.

Often remarked on: that our lives are drama. We strut and fret our hour on the stage and so on. Even outwardly undramatic lives are a drama; they’re playing out in accordance with the internal logic of character, genes, trauma, & conditioning. They follow a script authored by those factors, amongst others. In many, the old familiar “fatal flaw” is the primary author of the script…And it’s not all the big events; big ones are made of, or predicated on, small ones. James Joyce’s massive “Ulysses” chronicles a single day in the life of Leopold Bloom, and with believability. The banal is riveting seen with a perfect combination of subjectivity and objectivity, and perhaps some gift for poetic irony. Everyone has a drama. Sometimes it’s a comic drama, sometimes not. . .

I often envisage my last scene, when I’m dying. If death doesn’t sneak up on me suddenly, then my death will be either lonely and despairing, or peaceful and attended; I may be in great pain, delusional, brain riddled with holes; or I may be cogent, conscious, coming to understanding. Any of these outcomes is a suitable end for a drama.

People who assert that life, the universe and reality is meaningless…puzzle me. Many questions arise. How can they know it’s all meaningless? Science doesn’t say it’s meaningless. It says that nature evolves randomly, but it doesn’t address the question of meaning.

And if it all emerges randomly–why does that mean it’s all in every respect meaningless? Is *random* really synonymous with meaningless? What if it’s not?

How much time did someone who asserts that all is meaningless spend on the question? Did they break down all of science and experience, parse all of it, to come to their conclusion? Or did they jump to that conclusion–because it’s easier? An hour’s thought, or two, a book Wittgenstein, and one by Sartre.. conveys on them the ability to see all possible meaning?

If the cosmos had meaning, would creatures as little and temporary and sleepily foolish as we are, likely see it? Our viewpoint on reality is miniscule–like a view through a periscope. How can we make a judgment on the meaning of it all through such a narrow lens–and through one snatched away from us in a short human lifetime?

I do not and will never believe in the supernatural. Satan and Gabriel could appear before me, scorching the Earth in their battle, and I would not believe it’s supernatural. I would believe that it’s the unknown natural.

And somewhere in the unknown natural, is the strong possibility meaning

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Two nights ago the power went out over the whole neighborhood. We got our flashlights and went out for a walk, because the stars would be more visible without the streetlights and houselights. And they were. I noticed that some, besides the planets, were differently colored than other stars–usually they all seem like sharp points of blue white light.

The night seemed more palpable, the darkness more velvety; bats came closer, raggedly flapping. Owls swooped lower. Other people were out too, talking, the mood almost festive. They were confident the lights would come back on, their televisions and computers and the combination TV and PC. Meanwhile they seemed almost relieved the power was off. (My youngest son, walking with us, of course had brought electronics along, and looked into his phone while he listened to music).

Then, before we had walked back home, the lights came back on–and, not for the first time on an occasion like this, I felt disappointment. I felt a trap closing in on me again. I looked at other people on the street turning off their flashlights and walking home. They seemed disappointed, too.